The Baltimore City Paper's annual Big Music Issue is out today, and my article in it this year, Behind The Fence, is about Ogun, his music, and his work with Maryland prisons. The issue's other features include Brandon Soderberg on out-of-town variants of Baltimore club, Geoffrey Himes on Wye Oak, and Michael Byrne on Karl Ekdahl.

(photo by Rarah)

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore club, magazines/newspapers, Ogun

Wordsmith & I.N.C. The Poet - A Baltimore Martini

Last month, I posted about Wordsmith's album with Chubb Rock, Bridging The Gap and mentioned it had just come out. But I realized more recently that I jumped the gun and it was pushed back a few weeks, so it's actually officially coming out today, July 14th. And since I wanted to mention that and make sure people know it's available now, I thought I'd post about Wordsmith's other duo album that recently came out. This one's with I.N.C. The Poet, who I wasn't familiar with before, turns out he's from the UK, which I didn't realize during the whole first half of the album, then I started to hear a slight accent on track 6 and looked up where he was from. Apparently he's from a town called Martini, hence the title. Strada, who does the beats on a lot of Wordsmith's projects, is on the first few tracks here, and overall it has the same kinda sound and vibe as his other records, although it kinda feels like there's more dark, introspective topics than usual. Wordsmith also seems to kinda whisper more, but he's always had a pretty whispery flow. Anyway, good short record, nice collaborative vibe where they really seemed to write songs together and get on the same page.

Wordsmith & I.N.C. The Poet - "A Baltimore Martini" (mp3)
The title track, produced by Art Glasbeek, is probably my favorite track on the album.

Labels: mixtape/album review, mp3, Wordsmith

Labels: 100 Grandman, 5 Seasons, Deep Flow, flyer

This weekend is Artscape, which I'm unfortunately gonna miss this year since I'll be out of town for a wedding. There's not as much Baltimore hip hop and club music as there was last year, but there are some good acts involved. For The People Entertainment won the Sound-Off! contest I posted about a few weeks ago, and will be performing on the festival stage at 2pm on Friday, and again on the main stage on Saturday at 3:30pm. The group Beat Box will be on the festival stage at 12:30pm on Friday. And while there's sadly no DJ culture stage this year, the Windup Space will have DJs spinning, including DJ Booman, Scottie B. and King Tutt, plus a lot more Baltimore club DJs at this year's My Crew Be Unruly event at Paradox during the festival.

Labels: Baltimore club, DJ Booman, flyer, For The People Entertainment, King Tutt, Scottie B.

Labels: Black Hole Rock Club, flyer, Tha Profitt

Bossman - "Off The Record Part 2" (mp3)
The original "Off The Record" was released in November 2004, a few weeks before the Law & Order album hit the stores, and I remember how hyped up I was the first time I heard it. Bossman had already been all over 92Q with "Oh" and "I Did It," but "Off The Record" was really the song that made me a fan of his, just the fact that he got on the radio with such a personal, lyrical song, especially in Baltimore, back at a time when pretty much every local song that got spins was a club-ready Rod Lee track. I feel like what he was doing on there, the kind of meta commentary on what's going on in hip hop, has become really commonplace in recent years, independent rappers always rushing to weigh in on the latest controversies, but back then him speaking really frankly about celebrities and the industry was kind of refreshing and bold. I even geeked out and transcribed the lyrics for the fuck of it at one point. If you've never heard the original, I posted a DL link as part of the top 10 of my 5th anniversary retrospective a few weeks ago.

Back when Bossman was still signed to Virgin, I remember there being talk of an update or sequel to "Off The Record," and at one point there was a remix with Lil Mo that changed up a few lines in the song to make it more current at the time. So I didn't really expect, almost 5 years after the original, for the One Up camp to hit me with this, a proper follow-up, whole new song with a new beat and hook, dealing with current topics but still with the same blunt observational tone, from what went down with Jermaine Dupri to Michael Jackson to Jay-Z's "D.O.A." and speaking straight up truth about that Drake kid. I ain't mad at him at all for getting success with "Break Me Off" and the AutoTune records (OK, in the spirit of being truthful and not sparing anyone's feelings, he does sound pretty terrible when he sings on those songs), but it's good to hear Bossman going back to what made me really rep for his music in the first place.

Labels: Bossman, mp3, One Up Entertainment

Labels: Club Reality, flyer, open mic, Shaka Pitts

Legacy D. Don - Teflon Don Vol. 1: Learn My Name

Legacy D. Don sent me this mixtape a few months ago, never really heard of him before and I still don't really feel like I know anything about him after listening to it a couple times. It's not bad, he's got some hot lines here and there, but he's mostly just rapping generic punchlines over Lil Wayne and Kanye instrumentals and you don't get any sense that he writes original songs or what he'd write songs about if he did from this. I guess I learned his name, if nothing else, though. TestMe guests on a few tracks, and Smash also guests on one.

Legacy D. Don - "Warning Shot" (mp3)
This song is cold as hell, props if it's an original track, I don't recognize the beat anywhere.

Labels: mixtape/album review, mp3, Smash, TestMe

Confirmed acts include DJ Class, Chavy Boys (Scottie B, Shawn Caesar, King Tutt), Ultra Nate (live), Rod Lee, Doo Dew Kidz (Booman, KW Griff, Jimmy Jones), Johnny Blaze, Supa DJ Big L, Say Wut, Emynd & Bo Bliz, Cousin Cole, Stereofaith and more to be announced.

Labels: Baltimore club, DJ Booman, DJ Class, flyer, K-Swift, King Tutt, KW Griff, NSW (Say What), Paradox, Rod Lee, Scottie B., Unruly Records

Gritty Gang - Street Certified Goods (Real On Purpose)

Three years ago, Ogun pulled together big diverse cast of Baltimore MCs for the first Gritty Gang mixtape, and for a while I didn't hear anything about the Gritty Gang and thought maybe it was just a one-off. But now there's a whole new mixtape out, with the same title as the first one, bringing back the whole concept. A lot of people that were on the first mixtape make appearances (Skarr Akbar, Ammo, Rockwell, Q Gutta, G.E.M.) along with a lot of people that weren't (Sonny Reddz, Kuan, Talal, Barz), everything recorded at Architects Recording Studio. 41yo posted a couple tracks that were leaked in advance, and you can hear more on the Gritty Gang MySpace page.

Sonny Reddz - "War Pop Off" (mp3)
I've only heard Reddz on a handful of guest spots in the past so this is really the first solo track I've heard and he really murders it, this is just a great violent banger.

Labels: 41yo, Architects, G.E.M./Tha Plague, mixtape/album review, mp3, Ogun, Skarr Akbar

Labels: flyer

One Up Entertainment has produced hits for Keyshia Cole, Jaheim, Raheem Devaughn, J-L0, Ice Cube, Mya, Ameerie, LL Cool J, and many more. One Up has put together a tour that will be judged by major labels such as Def Jam, EMI, Sony, MySpace Music and more.

The tour's purpose is to promote Myspace Records recording artist Bossman and to launch these unsigned artist into stardom with the chance to land a record deal. Currently, the tour is schedule for events in Baltimore, DC, Virgina, NC, DE, PA. The tour is looking artists in the following areas: A Capella, Acoustic, Adult Contemporary, Contemporary Christian, Country, Gospel, Hip-Hop/Rap, Holy Hip Hop, Pop, Reggae, Soul and Urban/R&B.

Rich Shelton, CEO and Co owner of One Up, states "our goal is to help two artist per year land a record deal, while at the same time grow the fanbase of each artist". Visit the tour website for more information at MySpace.com/OneUpTour.

Labels: Bossman, flyer, One Up Entertainment

Rod Lee - Vol. 4 - The Pressure (Club Kingz Records/Morphius Urban)

The Pressure is the last of Rod Lee's first four albums that were part of Morphius's reissue program, originally released independently in 2004 (or maybe 2003? not sure) and then pressed up by Morphius last summer. I wrote about the other three already, and I'm still not totally sure which one is my favorite, but they're all good and this is no different. It's got over 30 tracks and is crammed full of club classics, half of which are Rod Lee's own tracks and half of which are by producers like K.W. Griff, DJ Class, Dukeyman, Scottie B. and others.

Debonair Samir - "Lil Egypt" (mp3)
This is one of my all-time favorites that I always forget the name of or who produced it, so I was happy to be reminded when I went back to listen to this mix again. If you were listening to club DJs 5 years ago, you definitely would recognize this track. The sample is The Coasters, who also did the song "Charlie Brown" that was remixed as a Baltimore club staple by Samir, so it's kind of like a companion to that track.

Labels: Baltimore club, Debonair Samir, DJ Class, KW Griff, mixtape/album review, mp3, Rod Lee, Scottie B.

Over on Idolator that Rye Rye's video is now out for "Bang," which was produced by Blaq Starr and features M.I.A. Also, 41yo posted a making of and a remix by DJ Booman. A little more surprisingly, Atlanta rapper Stat Quo also did a remix of "Bang."

Labels: 41yo, Baltimore club, Blaq Starr, DJ Booman, Rye Rye, video

Labels: E Major, flyer

The Boy Blesst - Charmicidle (Reign Music Inc.)

The Boy Blesst is really one rapper that I've always felt like doesn't get the props he should in Baltimore, just a really solid MC with his own twist on things and always makes good music. But his new album, which I reviewed in the City Paper this week, really exceeded my expectations. Sick verses, memorable hooks, good variety of beats (by Banga Bill, Street Heat, Imahj, J Stax, B.Lansky, among others), not much filler or bullshit, I really hope people don't sleep on him this time. You can buy the album here.

The Boy Blesst - "U Lucky" (mp3)
It was tough to pick a favorite song here, the whole stretch from tracks 4-8 is golden, but right now this is the one I'm feeling the most.

Labels: Baltimore City Paper, Banga Bill, magazines/newspapers, mixtape/album review, mp3, The Boy Blesst

Labels: Club Reality, flyer

This week WWW.ALLBMOREHIPHOP.COM, a site put together by the folks at Architects Recording Studio, launched and they've got a whole bunch of free downloads of full-length albums and mixtapes by artists including Ogun, Skarr Akbar, Bossman, TestMe, Barnes, Huli Shallone, UnReal, D.O.G., ShellBe R.A.W., EJ, Rye Rye and many others. I think it's great that there's gonna be a site like this from now on, and from Ogun's told me they've got a lot more stuff planned.

Labels: ALLBMOREHIPHOP.COM, announcements, Architects, Barnes, Bossman, D.O.G., EJ, Huli Shallone, Ogun, Rye Rye, ShellBe RAW, Skarr Akbar, TestMe, UnReal

various artists - The Best of Deep Flow Radio presents... Fed Up (Deep Flow Studios)

This 16-track CD was based on the simple concept of taking songs that had gotten 4 of 5 star ratings on DeepFlowRadio.com and compiling them on one CD. The little tweak on the concept that Amotion decided on, however, was to cram 60 songs into the hourlong compilation, with several songs on each track, organized by artist, with folks including TestMe, Young Hustlers and Dynamic Compositions. And I can see why that seemed like a good ambitious idea, but personally for me, it's the reason I found Fed Up to be a really unpleasant listening experience. I hate listening to snippets of songs, hearing 30 seconds or a minute of a song and then it cutting off just as I'm getting into it -- if it was a DJ mix and it was all blended together in some graceful way maybe it would work, but here it's just abrupt every time and there's no groove. A lot of times it's just oddly selected portions of freestyles, too, so you just get a few seconds of someone ad-libbing over a radio song, which is not exactly a great showcase for the artists. I feel bad saying this, because I think Amotion really thought this was a good idea and was eager to get feedback when she sent it out, but I think this was a big mistake and it's just not lister-friendly at all. The title is kind of wrapped up into a theme with a lot of the artists talking about what they're fed up about at the beginning of each track, but usually the music has nothing to do with that.

LP f/ Mooda (mp3)
LP is a female rapper who I saw perform at Melodic Mondays last week and I was really impressed by her set. Haven't been able to find a MySpace page or any more info about her online, though. As with the other tracks, this is just excerpts of several different songs, so it doesn't have a title.

Labels: Deep Flow, Internet radio, mixtape/album review, mp3, TestMe

Labels: flyer, Height